USA > Pennsylvania > Progressive Pennsylvania; a record of the remarkable industrial development of the Keystone state, with some account of its early and its later transportation systems, its early settlers, and its prominent men > Part 15
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER XVI.
EARLY RAILROADS IN THE UNITED STATES.
SHORT railways for hauling coal, but of primitive con- struction and operated by hand power or horse power, were in use in England as early as the middle of the sev- enteenth century. The first railroad in the world for the transportation of both freight and passengers, the Stock- ton and Darlington Railway, in England, was opened to the public in 1825, this event occurring on September 27. It was primarily intended to carry only freight, nor was the use of locomotives in moving trains on this road at first contemplated. Authority to use " locomotive engines " was granted by Parliament in 1823. This road was form- ally opened with one of Stephenson's locomotives, and in one month afterwards passengers were regularly car- ried in a single coach. Horse power was, however, gen- erally employed for several years, and during this period few passengers were carried. This road had four inclined planes, with stationary engines. It was not until the Liver- pool and Manchester Railway, also in England, was opened to the public on September 15, 1830, that the carrying of passengers by rail and the use of steam power in moving trains became recognized features of railroad practice. Stephenson's Rocket was successfully tested on this road in October, 1829.
In Railway Problems, written by J. S. Jeans and pub- lished in London in 1887, these facts are stated : " Many towns petitioned against having railways brought near them and demanded that railways and canals alike should be kept several miles from their borders. The vested in- terests of stage-coach proprietors and carriers offered a strenuous opposition to the new system. The medical fac- ulty were pressed into the service of the opposition, with direful forebodings as to the physical evils that would fol- low from traveling at the rate of thirty to forty miles an hour. Canal proprietors urged that they had already pro-
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EARLY RAILROADS IN THE UNITED STATES.
vided all the facilities necessary for heavy traffic, and that it would be grossly unjust to them to allow a rival interest to step in and deprive them of the fruits of their efforts and expenditure. In some cases railway companies were forbidden to use 'any locomotive or movable engines' without the consent of the owners and occupiers of lands through which their line passed. Many wiseacres pro- nounced that the system would, after all, prove a failure, and the Quarterly Review of March, 1825, remarked oracu- larly that 'as to those persons who speculate on making railways general throughout the kingdom, and superseding all the canals, all the wagons, mail and stage coaches, post- chaises, and, in short, every other mode of conveyance by land and by water, we deem them, and their visionary schemes, unworthy of notice.'"
In a speech in the House of Commons in opposition to the granting of a charter to the Liverpool and Manches- ter Railway Company Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin said : "I would not consent to see the widow's premises and straw- berry beds invaded. Railroad trains would take many hours to perform the journey between Liverpool and Man- chester, and in the event the scheme succeeds what, I would like to ask, what was to be done for all those who had advanced money in making and repairing turnpike roads ? What with those who still wished to travel in their own or hired carriages, after the fashion of their fore- fathers ? What was to become of the coachmakers, har- nessmakers, coachmasters and coachmen, innkeepers, horse breeders, and horse dealers ? Was the House aware of the smoke and the noise, the hiss and whirl, which locomotive engines, passing at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, would occasion ? Neither the cattle plowing in the fields, nor grazing in the meadows, would view them without dis- may. Iron would be raised in price one hundred per cent., or more probably exhausted altogether. It would be the greatest nuisance, the most complete disturber of quiet and comfort in all parts of the kingdom, that the inge- nuity of man could invent."
Between 1825 and 1830 the policy of introducing rail- roads in the United States for the transportation of both
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
freight and passengers received a great deal of attention. It was decided to give them a trial. A few short lines of railroad for hauling stone and other heavy products had previously been built in this country. None of them were intended to carry passengers. One of these was built on Beacon Hill, Boston, by Silas Whitney, in 1807; another by Thomas Leiper, in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, in 1809 ; and another at Bear Creek furnace, in Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, in 1818. The tracks of these roads were composed of wooden rails, and at least the Beacon Hill road used wooden wheels with iron axles. Other short railroads for similar service soon followed, but the wooden rails were strapped with flat iron bars. In 1828 the con- struction of our first passenger railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, was commenced, and in 1830 fifteen miles of this road were opened for both freight and passenger traffic, horse power being used. Other railroads in this country for the transportation of both freight and pas- sengers were partly if not wholly completed in 1830 and 1831. Locomotives of American construction were intro- duced on American railroads in these and immediately succeeding years, but most of the early railroads in this country were originally operated with horse power.
During the early discussion of the feasibility of intro- ducing railroads in this country for general transportation purposes many curious opinions of a favorable as well as an unfavorable character were expressed, some of which may well be preserved. One writer in referring to that period says : " It was admitted that for novelty and speed a railroad might be preferable to stage coaches and canal boats, but it was contended that for a long journey or for a man traveling with a family a canal was better. It was pointed out that on a canal boat passengers could eat their meals, walk about and write a letter, whereas in a railway carriage these things were then impossible. In a canal boat, too, the passengers were as safe as at home, whereas in a railway car nobody could tell what might happen."
In their annual report to the Legislature of Pennsyl- vania in December, 1831, the canal commissioners said : "While the board avow themselves favorable to railroads
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EARLY RAILROADS IN THE UNITED STATES.
where it is impracticable to construct canals, or under some peculiar circumstances, they can not forbear ex- pressing their opinion that the advocates of railroads gen- erally have overrated their comparative value. The board believe that, notwithstanding all the improvements that have been made in railroads and locomotives, it will be found that canals are from two to two and a half times better than railroads for the purposes required of them by Pennsylvania."
In July, 1855, while we were publishing the Johnstown Tribune, there was placed in our hands a copy of the Greensburg Gazette, dated March 25, 1825. Mr. Frederick J. Cope, a gentleman of more than ordinary intelligence, was then the editor and publisher of the Gazette. In the copy of the Gazette referred to Mr. Cope gave prominence to a discussion of the new method of transporting all kinds of freight and also passengers by railroad, with steam pow- er applied through stationary engines or by locomotives. First there is presented a wood-cut illustration of "a sec- tion of a railroad, with a view of a locomotive, having in tow three transportation wagons," copied from a com- munication in the Baltimore American, together with an explanation of the method of operating the road with the aid of the locomotive. The following is the explanation in the American. We quote it exactly as it was printed.
"Believing that a diagram of a railway, together with the steam and other wagons upon it, would tend to render the subject more easily understood I have caused one to be engraved. It will be observed, in referring to this dia- gram inserted above, that the steam engine has six wheels, four of which, the two foremost and two hindmost, have grooves to fit the rail like those of the wagons intended to carry merchandise and rest upon the smooth rail, and that the two middle, which are cog wheels, play into the cogs of the rail, which are somewhat nearer to the surface of the earth than the smooth edge. The four wheels which run upon the smooth surface support the whole weight of the steam engine. Of course the middle or cog wheels are not pressed upon, and being put into motion by the ma- chinery of the engine serve to propel the wagons in the
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
same manner as the wheels of the steam boats act. By the loco-motive engine fifty tons of goods may be conveyed by a ten-horse-power engine, on a level road, at the rate of six miles an hour, and lighter weights at a proportioned increase of speed. Carriages at the rate of twelve or four- teen miles per hour. For canals it is necessary to have a dead level, but not so for railroads ; an engine will work goods over an elevation of one-eighth of an inch to the yard. Where the ascent or descent is rapid, and can not be coun- teracted by cutting or embankments, recourse must be had to permanent engines and inclined planes, just as re- course is had to locks for canals, but here again the rail- road system has the advantage; the inclined plane causes no delay, while locking creates a great deal."
That such crude engineering and mechanical notions should have existed in 1825 is only another proof of the truth of the hackneyed remark that far more scientific and mechanical progress was made in the nineteenth century than in all preceding centuries. In a few years after 1825 all the theories and estimates of the writer in the Balti- more American were completely discredited.
Notwithstanding the favorable opinion of the writer in the American the editor of the Gazette was skeptical. He commented on the cut and the explanation as follows : "We have prepared and placed on the first page of our paper an engraving representing a loco-motive engine, hav- ing in tow three transportation wagons, accompanied by an explanation from another paper. It would be impos- sible, we think, to bring the steam wagon into successful operation between the East and the West. It requires too many stationary engines to propel the wagons over our numerous hills. It would be necessary to have half a dozen in sight of this town, for we are situated on a hill and surrounded by them on all sides."
It is only a little more than eighty years since these remarkable opinions were expressed by the editor of the Gazette. The "steam wagon" has done very good work between the East and the West for more than sixty years and without the assistance of stationary engines anywhere near Greensburg. The "numerous hills" of Westmoreland
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EARLY RAILROADS IN THE UNITED STATES.
county, referred to by the editor of the Gazette, did not offer as serious obstacles to the building of a railroad as real mountains in our country did elsewhere, but all these obstacles were soon overcome. If stationary engines were at first used on some lines of railroad in this country, particularly on the Allegheny Portage Railroad, they were abandoned many years ago.
The following details of the first American railroad that was built for the conveyance of both freight and passengers we glean from Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States and from the records of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. Prior to the completion of the first section of the road of this company all the rail- roads in the United States that had been in operation were built to haul coal or other heavy materials.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company was char- tered by the Maryland Legislature on February 28, 1827, and by the Virginia Legislature on March 8, 1827. By the charter its capital stock was fixed at $5,000,000, with the right to organize on the subscription of one-fifth that amount. It was provided in the charter that the road was to be built from Baltimore to a point on the Ohio river not lower than the mouth of the Little Kanawha, where Parkersburg stands. Its terminus on the Ohio was sub- sequently fixed at Wheeling. As there existed a probabil- ity that the road would be extended to Pittsburgh the Pennsylvania Legislature "confirmed" the charter of the company on February 22, 1828. In April, 1827, the re- quired subscription having been obtained, the company was organized and the surveys of the road were at once undertaken. On the 4th of July, 1828, the line having been finally located to Point of Rocks, the construction of the road was commenced with considerable ceremony, the venerable Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, laying the "cor- ner stone." In 1829 the track was finished to Vinegar Hill, a distance of about seven miles, and "cars were put upon it for the accommodation of the officers and to grat- ify the curious by a ride." The progress of construction of the road from Baltimore to Wheeling is shown in the following statement, which has been officially verified.
11
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
From
To
Length in miles.
Date of opening.
Baltimore
Ellicott's Mills
15.00
May 24, 1830
Ellicott's Mills
Frederick
44.30
Dec.
1, 1831
Frederick
Point of Rocks.
10.90
April 1, 1832
Point of Rocks.
Harper's Ferry
12.50
Dec. 1, 1834
Harper's Ferry.
Opposite Hancock.
41.30
June
1,
1842
Opposite Hancock
Cumberland
55.20
Nov.
5, 1842
Cumberland.
Piedmont
28.10
July 21, 1851
Piedmont
Fairmont
96.00
June 22, 1852
Fairmont
Wheeling
77.70
Jan. 1, 1853
Frederick is situated on a branch three and a half miles from the main line of the road, which accounts for an increase in the table in its total length from 377.40 miles, as given in Poor's Manual for 1904, to 381 miles. The Washington branch was opened from Relay to Bla- densburg on July 20, 1834, and to Washington on August 25, 1834. It will be noticed that a quarter of a century elapsed before the road was opened from Baltimore to Wheeling in 1853.
The first section of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad after its opening to Ellicott's Mills was operated by horse power. On August 30, 1830, a small locomotive, built at Baltimore by Peter Cooper, was successfully experimented with on this section as a substitute for horse power, Mr. Cooper being his own engineer. Soon afterwards other and more powerful locomotives were introduced.
The Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad Company was chartered on April 2, 1837, by the Legislature of Pennsylvania. On April 18, 1853, the charter was amend- ed so as to authorize the extension of the road to Cumber- land, Maryland, to which place it was opened from Pitts- burgh in June, 1871. This road, now forming the Pitts- burgh division of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, was leased on December 13, 1875, to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company for fifty years from January 1, 1876, the lease to be renewable in perpetuity.
The section of the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Rail- road between Connellsville and West Newton was opened for traffic on September 13, 1855. The road between Connellsville and Turtle Creek was opened on January 14,
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EARLY RAILROADS IN THE UNITED STATES.
1857, and the entire line from Connellsville to Pittsburgh was opened on October 10, 1861.
In 1907 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company owned, operated, or controlled 4,525.51 miles of main track.
In 1826 the New York Legislature granted a charter for the construction of the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, for the carriage of freight and passengers from Albany to Schenectady, a distance of seventeen miles. Work on this road, however, was not commenced until August, 1830. It was opened for traffic on September 12, 1831. The next passenger railroad enterprise that was chartered in the United States was the Charleston and Hamburg Rail- road in South Carolina, which was chartered on December 19, 1827. Six miles of this road were completed in 1829, but they were not opened to the public until December 6, 1830, when a locomotive was placed on its track. The road was completed in September, 1833, a distance of 135 miles. At that time it was the longest continuous line of railroad in the world.
It will be seen that the first passenger railroad in the United States that was opened to the public was a Mary- land enterprise and that the second was a South Carolina enterprise. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was the third passenger railroad to be opened for travel in the United States.
The Camden and Amboy Railroad was chartered in 1830 and construction was commenced in 1831. Its total length was sixty-one miles, thirty-four of which, between Bordentown and South Amboy, were opened for travel in December, 1832, and the remainder, between Bordentown and Camden, in 1834. The Allegheny Portage Railroad and the Columbia Railroad, both in Pennsylvania, which have been already noticed, were other early railroads in this country. They were opened in the spring of 1834.
The first locomotive to run upon an American railroad was the Stourbridge Lion, which was built in England. It was first used at Honesdale, Pennsylvania, on August 8, 1829, on the coal railroad of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. W. Hasell Wilson says that the locomo- tive John Bull, built by Stephenson & Co., of England,
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
to the order of Robert L. Stevens, president of the Cam- den and Amboy Railroad Company, was shipped from Newcastle in June, 1831, and placed upon the Camden and Amboy Railroad in August of the same year. Mr. Wilson further says that the first passenger train on this railroad that was regularly hauled by steam power was drawn by the John Bull between Bordentown and South Amboy in September, 1833, the time occupied for the thirty-four miles being about three hours.
The first American locomotive that was built for actual service was the Best Friend of Charleston, which was built at the West Point Foundry, in New York City, for the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad in South Carolina, and was successfully used on that road in December, 1830.
Phineas Davis, of York, Pennsylvania, invented and built the first locomotive that successfully used anthra- cite coal. In George R. Prowell's History of York County he says that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company offered on January 4, 1831, a prize of $3,500 to the in- ventor and manufacturer of a locomotive of American manufacture that would burn coal or coke and consume its own smoke, and that Mr. Davis built in 1832 at the York Foundry and Machine Shop, of which he was half owner, a locomotive which met all these requirements. He called it The York. It used anthracite coal and was a great success. Others followed in the same year.
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EARLY RAILROADS IN PENNSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER XVII.
EARLY RAILROADS IN PENNSYLVANIA.
PENNSYLVANIA is the foremost State in the Union in the attention it has given to the building of railroads, and all things considered it is also the foremost in the results that have been attained. It is exceeded in railroad mile- age by only two States, Illinois and Texas, but each of these States has a much greater area in square miles than Pennsylvania, each of them has fewer miles of double track than Pennsylvania, and in each of them, both prai- rie States, railroad construction has been very much less difficult from an engineering standpoint, and therefore less expensive, than in Pennsylvania. The following table shows the length of steam railroads which had been built in the three States named at the close of 1907. It also shows the area in square miles of each of the States mentioned, exact figures having been furnished for this chapter by the Government geographer, Henry Gannett.
States.
Miles of Railroad Built.
Area in Square Miles.
Texas
12,877.27
265,896
Illinois
12,201.73
56,665
Pennsylvania
11,309.31
.45,126
The States which approach nearest to Pennsylvania in railroad mileage are Iowa, with 9,889.12 miles; Ohio, with 9,284.95 miles ; Kansas, with 8,907.98 miles ; Michigan, with 8,610.75 miles ; and New York, with 8,371.63 miles. With the exception of Ohio each of these States has a larger area in square miles than Pennsylvania, and all of them are less mountainous, only New York approaching it in this physical characteristic. Nor have gifts of public lands helped Pennsylvania to build its railroads. If we consider also the enterprise of Pennsylvania in extending its railroad connections to other States its pre-eminence as a railroad State becomes even more manifest.
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
Pennsylvania is gridironed with railroads. A map of the State will show railroads radiating from its commer- cial centres in every direction-roads running east and west, north and south, northeast and . northwest, southeast and southwest, penetrating every one of the sixty-seven counties in the State except Fulton county, which will soon have its first railroad. A volume would be required to give even a brief history of all these roads. Only a few facts relating to the early and the leading railroads of Pennsylvania will be presented in this chapter.
In the preceding chapter mention has been made of two short pioneer railroads in Pennsylvania-one in Dela- ware county, built in 1809, and the other in Armstrong county, built in 1818, the first, about a mile long, to haul stone from a quarry, and the other, also a short road, to haul the raw materials for a blast furnace. These were unimportant enterprises. Both roads had wooden rails.
The first railroad in Pennsylvania of real importance was the Mauch Chunk Railroad, in Carbon county, nine miles long, with four miles of sidings, built in 1827 to con- nect the coal mines of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company with the Lehigh river. Solomon W. Roberts says of this road : "It was laid mostly on the turnpike, and the wooden rails were strapped with common mer- chant bar iron. The holes for the spikes were drilled by hand." The next railroad in Pennsylvania was the Car- bondale and Honesdale Railroad, commenced in 1826 and completed in 1829, built by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company to connect the company's coal mines at Carbondale with its canal at Honesdale. It was sixteen and a quarter miles long. Its wooden rails were strapped with iron bars. Both railroads were coal roads. Neither of these roads was intended to haul general freight or to carry passengers.
In the decade beginning with 1830 a great impetus was given to the building of railroads in Pennsylvania. Several companies were incorporated in that year to build these roads, including the Philadelphia, Germantown, and Norristown Railroad, of which five miles were completed in 1832. Other railroad companies were incorporated in
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EARLY RAILROADS IN PENNSYLVANIA.
1832 and 1833, including the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad Company, and the Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mount Joy, and Lancaster Railroad Company. In 1834 the Columbia Railroad and the Allegheny Portage Railroad, both State enterprises connected with the Pennsylvania Canal, were opened for business. In 1836 the following roads, built by incorporated companies, had been completed : Mauch Chunk, 9 miles ; West Chester, 9 miles ; Room Run, 5} miles ; Philadelphia, Germantown, and Norristown, 21 miles ; Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven, 20 miles ; Mount Carbon, 7 miles ; Lykens Valley, 16} miles ; Little Schuyl- kill, 212 miles ; Schuylkill Valley, 10 miles ; Mill Creek, 4 miles ; Pine Grove, 4 miles ; Carbondale, 16} miles ; Phila- delphia and Trenton, 262 miles ; Beaver Meadow, 26} miles : total, 1964 miles. Other railroads were in course of construction in 1836, including the Philadelphia and Reading, the Philadelphia and Wilmington, the Harrisburg and Chambersburg, the Williamsport and Elmira, and the Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mount Joy, and Lancaster.
From a history of the Philadelphia and Reading Rail- road-now the Philadelphia and Reading Railway-by Charles E. Smith, once its president, we take the follow- ing interesting details of the early history of this road, which was the first of all the existing great railroad en- terprises in Pennsylvania.
" The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company was chartered on April 4, 1833, 'to build a road from the borough of Reading to a point in or near Philadelphia (58 miles), or on the line of the Philadelphia and Colum- bia Railroad (now the Pennsylvania Railroad), or of the Philadelphia and Norristown Railroad (41 miles).' . The company was organized in 1834, Elihu Chauncey being elected president and Moncure Robinson appointed chief engineer. The board wished to build the road from Read- ing to Norristown, 41 miles, as the cheapest plan, and use the Norristown Railroad thence to Philadelphia, 17 miles. Mr. Robinson opposed this vigorously. His idea was finally adopted, by building the road to Belmont and using the Columbia Railroad, then belonging to the State
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